Sunday
Jun082014
Box Office Haiku: The Fault in Cruise's Budget
Sunday, June 8, 2014 at 7:40PM Cancer romance tops
Critics loved expensive "Edge"
Maleficent's legs!
Mutants or Monsters -
What did you see this weekend?
Time for Tonys. Bye!
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
01 THE FAULT IN OUR STARS $48.2 NEW Review
02 MALEFICENT $33.5 (cum. $127.3) Podcast
03 EDGE OF TOMORROW $29.1 NEW
04 X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST $14.7 (cum. $189.1) Review
05 A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST $7.1 (cum. $30) Guest Review
06 GODZILLA $5.9 (cum. $185) Review & Podcast
07 NEIGHBORS $5.2 (cum. $137.8) Review & Podcast
08 BLENDED $4 (cum. $36.5)
09 CHEF $2.6 (cum. $10.3)
10 MILLION DOLLAR ARM $1.8 (cum. $31.3)
P.S. Good Captain
Finally lapped those Legos
Champion of the year
Reader Comments (8)
@Nathan & Nick Davis
Sophie Okonedo is now a Tony winner.
Saw BOTH Fault and Edge. AND watching the Tony Awards.
Go Captain!
I am not a Tom Cruise fan but saw Edge of Tomorrow based on the reviews. I thought the character of a military spin officer who pisses off a general was a good fit for Cruise's too intense and smarmy style. If you don't think too much about the plot logic, it was an action movie with humor.
Edge's box office has me wondering about the effect of reviews on sci-fi especially those based on unknown properties. I think reviews helped kill Transcendence but could not save Edge of Tomorrow. So maybe the effect of reviews can only be negative.
@Vaus - I think Cruise's draw has been significantly diminished, a significant factor in Edge's performance. With the caveat that it's anecdata at its finest, I've simply heard way too many people saying that they don't want to see a movie with "Crazy Tom" or "Xenu Cruise." That coupled with its misleading marketing -- it's a far funnier film than its trailers would suggest as you noted -- seems to have doomed it. Unfortunate, really. I'm by no means a Cruise booster but I'm most certainly a Blunt fan, and this is easily one of her finer outings. Cruise is still a potent force internationally though, so I hope more people in the world will see Blunt because of him. I think that Cruise needs Mission Impossible to sell pictures these days, or something so out there but attached to a good film (looks askance at Rock of Ages) to recapture some if his old mojo.
F is very right about Cruise's international reputation. Its already crossed the 100mil mark internationally. It'll have no trouble getting its budget back internationally. It does make me sad that the "Crazy Tom" thing overshadows that Cruise is still a great actor.
F: I don't get why that extends even to this movie. Even if the deaths are not portrayed humorously, wouldn't the schadenfreude factor have been a large enough draw in and of itself to get Edge to second place instead of third?
Yay The Fault in Our Stars!!!!
@Volvagia - the decrease in Cruise's appeal doesn't lie in an idol plummeting to the ground, or at least not all of it I think. It also partly has to do with how uncomfortable Cruise now makes a segment of the North American audience. His trademark intensity now comes across as intensely crazy.